Facebook replaces Photo Sync with Moments standalone app

Users of Facebook's Photo Sync will have to free up some space on their phones as it moves from an in-app feature to a standalone app.

Facebook have announced that support for Photo Sync will be discontinued, with users having to download a separate app via a pop-up notification in their News Feed. The app is named Moments -- somewhat awkwardly, perhaps, given Twitter's simultaneous launch of a new feature with the same name in the UK.

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Photo Sync allowed users to automatically upload photos to a private album that could then be shared, edited or deleted. Moments has similar functionality, allowing users to privately share albums and photos with selected friends. Launched in in June, Moments uses facial recognition technology to help keep photos organised and shared with the right people.

"When you go to a wedding, for example, there are many people taking great photos throughout the day," said Will Ruben, Product Manager. "You all want a quick way to share your photos with the friends who are in them, and get photos that you’re in back. The same is true for smaller events too, like a kayak trip or a night out. Syncing photos with the Moments app is a private way to give photos to friends and get the photos you didn’t take."

It's yet to be seen how successful the move to standalone app will be. Facebook's Messenger app has remained at the top of the App Store since it too was hived off from the main Facebook app, but other similar moves have failed to pay off. Slingshot, Facebook's Snapchat competitor, was axed after low adoption. Other apps including Riff, which allowed users to create 'viral videos', and Rooms, a forum app that allowed users to adopt pseudonyms, faced a similar fate. Creative Labs, Facebook's internal group for app development, shut down this year.

If Google Photos is anything to go by, however, Moments may well succeed -- Google's standalone photo-syncing app is a top 20 app in the App Store and a top 10 app on Android.